Author: Quentin

I designed a series of logos in support of the four century-plus-year-old buildings on the corner of 11th and Douglas Streets that Omaha Performing Arts is increasingly poised to raze in order to build what everyone recognizes as a parking garage, but they’re calling a “mixed use” building. Here’s a link to download a .zip file of the logos in various formats: ReSpecht logos

If you’re of the mindset that city leaders need to adjust their myopic, greedy, ego-driven, land-grab view of city planning, feel free to use these images in any way to voice your support. Avatars, Instagrams, Tweets, projections on the side of the Specht building, do with them what you want.

But even more important than posting pictures to social media and liking Facebook posts, call the Mayor’s hotline and tell Jean Stothert she’ll lose your vote if the city loses these buildings. Omaha Mayor’s Hotline.

Call all of the city council members and tell them they’ll lose your support if they remove the Christian Specht Building from Omaha’s list of protected structures. Omaha City Council contact information.

The owners of the Kaley House Bed and Breakfast at Red Cloud spent nearly two decades meticulously restoring the 1885 Victorian home before opening it as a bed and breakfast two years ago. We designed a logo for the historic home, which was originally owned by a family with a notable business law practice in south central Nebraska. If you find yourself needing a place to stay in the Republican River Valley (perhaps for one of Red Cloud’s Willa Cather conferences), be sure to look them up. The home is beautiful.

We wanted to show a little bit of the process behind the mark. After a bunch of sketching, we reduced the logo to a simplified version of the home based on historic and contemporary photographs, carefully drawn on a tight grid.

On short notice a few weeks ago, we were tasked with coming up with a plan B cover option for in issue of Hail Varsity whose deadline was rapidly approaching. Such is the nature of magazine publishing. While stressful, it’s at the same time one of the most fun situations to be in. Time ticking down, you have to come up with and execute a killer idea. Out came the glue, construction paper and Xacto blades, and we went to work. The story was about the families of brothers who have passed through the Huskers’ football locker room, so we went with a family tree approach. It took all of the twelve hours available, but was fun to work on for every one of those hours. Big thanks to the guys at Admiral District for photographing the image on 20 minutes notice nearing midnight on a Sunday.

We’re down to three Husker-football-free Saturdays left in the summer. Which means our Hail Varsity schedule posters will be delivered from the printer shortly. At 18″x24″, they’re big enough to cover one entire miserably taupe wall of a cubicle. They should be easy to pick up around Lincoln, or stop by the Hail Varsity World Headquarters in the basement of the old Rock ‘n’ Roll Runza later this week to grab a copy.

Among the highlights are a dozen or so churches (including Our Lady of Lourdes, above), dozens of schools (including Omaha Central), tons of old theaters (only a few of which remain standing today) and even a handful of residences.

The site is a magical combination of all the things I love: good design, local history and hopelessly giant archival databases. Go dive in here.

Today marks 125 years since the building permit for my house was issued. Both the Omaha World-Herald and Omaha Bee reported on June 4, 1890 that Michael Lee, City Council president and owner of what was likely a brothel near the Union Stockyards, pulled a permit for this house the previous day. The address on permit is a little wonky, combining both Woolworth Street address and the address of the South 30th Ave. house whose lot my home was built on. Lee had purchased the house at 1242 S. 30th Ave a month before and tore down the carriage house to make room for a new home.

I suspect Lee built the house as an investment, and his investment went south quickly. By December of 1890, builders Francis Bailey and Ole Olson claimed a $659.80 lien on the house for failure to pay for construction and in July of 1891 Lee sold the home. A year later the new owners finally paid off Bailey and Olson.

The Hail Varsity yearbook is on newsstands now and in the mail to subscribers. Annually, it’s one of Hanscom Park Studio’s most challenging, rewarding and fun projects. It’s a nearly 200-page magazine full of amazing portraits, fantastic writing and a few of my original illustrations. What’s not to love?

One of this year’s longread feature stories (in addition to profiles of De’Mornay Pierson-El and Maliek Collins) is on the need for reform of the NCAA. It’s a difficult concept to illustrate and make visually engaging, but I landed on the idea of a whole mess of pipes channeling money all over the place. And I think it works.

Getting the stippling just right on all of the elements took some real commitment to the look, but I think it was fitting texture given the simple pipes and basic three-color palette of the images.

Hail Varsity’s annual yearbook, a 175+ page in-depth preview of the Husker football team and its opponents went to press earlier this week. It’s one of the most challenging and gratifying projects of the year, and it’s exciting to see in print. There’s great photography and writing and an illustration we had a lot of fun doing for the main feature.

We did a matching set of double covers, both with gatefolds. They’ll be on newsstands in a little more than a week, and always available at HailVarsity.com

It’s pretty nice getting to see your work lit up in neon above one of your favorite spots in the city. Nite Owl opened at 39th and Farnam last fall, and I was privileged to design its logo. Stop in for one of the best happy hours in town (bring your own records and not only will they play them, they’ll give you a PBR for a buck) and take a look. Odds are I’ll be out on their soon-to-open patio, so say hello.